May 20th, 2020 By Lori Sallet
What’s at stake when we pave over, fragment and otherwise fail to protect farmland from the disruptions of development?
American Farmland Trust’s new report demonstrateshow developing farmland puts food security, the environment and our way of life in jeopardy.
5/20/2020, WASHINGTON, DC— Millions of acres of America’s agricultural land were developed or converted to uses that threaten farming between 2001and2016, according to“Farms Under Threat: The State of the States,”a new report byAmerican FarmlandTrust.The report’sAgricultural Land ProtectionScorecardisthe first-ever state-by-state analysis of policies that respondtothe development threats to farmland and ranchland, showingthat every state can, and must, do more to protect their irreplaceableagriculturalresources.
“TheState of the States” reportshows the extent, location, and quality of each state’s agricultural land and tracks how muchof ithas been converted in each state using the newest data and the most cutting-edge methods.TheAgricultural Land Protection Scorecardanalyzessix programs and policiesthat are keyto securinga sufficient and suitable base of agricultural land in each stateand highlights states’ efforts to retain agricultural land for futuregenerations.It offers a breakthrough tool foracceleratingstate efforts to make sure farmland is available to produce food, support jobs and the economy, provide essential environmental services, and help mitigate and buffer the impacts of climate change.
Agricultural lands are essential to a more resilient America that is better prepared for crises.
Farmland is vital to this nation’s food security, yet it continues to be paved over, fragmented, or converted topoorly plannedresidential, commercial and industrial uses. Between 2001 and 2016 alone,11 million acres of the nation’s irreplaceable agricultural land was lost or fragmented, equal to all the land in the U.Sused to produce fruits, vegetables and nutsin 2017. Roughly4.4millionoftheseacreswere“NationallySignificant”—our best land for food and crop production.
Because oftheCOVID-19pandemic, millions of Americans have seen empty grocery shelvesfor the first time in their lives.We havecome to realizehow critically important farmers are to us, how we turn to them in crises, and how they innovate to meet demand. But they can’t do their joband we won’t have sufficient healthyfoodwithout farmland.
The U.S. holds the world’s greatest concentration of fertile soil suited for growing food andothercrops.However,only39%the agricultural land in the lower 48 statesis defined by AFT as “Nationally Significant”land,whichcanreliably produce abundant yields for many decades to come, if farmed sustainably.
Each stateneeds to secure a critical mass of high-quality farmland to ensure that its food system is resilient in the face of extreme disruptions. After all, what is more essential to human life and society than healthy food? We need agriculture, especially environmentallysound “regenerative” agriculture,to survive. As a nation,it will takeregionally diverse andsometimes redundant systemsto support the increasingly complex public demandsonagriculture.All states must act to protect farmland.
The 12 states with the most threatened agricultural land are:
1)Texas2) North Carolina 3) New Jersey 4) Tennessee 5)Georgia6)Rhode Island7)Connecticut8)South Carolina9) Massachusetts 10) Delaware 11) Florida12) Pennsylvania
Actionisparticularly urgent inthe Southwhere threats are high,but policies are limited.
Farmland is at severe risk inthe South, where agricultural land is being urbanized and converted to low-density residential land use at a rapid pace. Six of the top twelve states with the most threatened agricultural land are in the South according to the new report.
Importantly, states in this region of the country have often enacted fewer public policies to protect agricultural land. States in the South that were identified as having a high degree of threat and low policy response include Texas, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. There is a particularly critical need for state policymakers to act in these states.
Urbanization slows, buta new threat comes into focus.
Since 2000, a combination of economic conditions, changing consumer preferences, planning practices and public policies have slowed urbanization.Even so,agricultural landis still beingconverted to urban and highly developed,orUHD,land uses nationwide.Between 2001 and 2016, 4 million acres were lostto the expansion of urban areas.
What’s more, theFarms Under Threatresearchcapturesa new class of land use: low-density residential, or LDR.LDR land use occurs wherethe average housing density is above the level where agriculture is typically viable. It includes large-lot subdivisions, open agricultural land that is adjacent to or surrounded by existing development, and areas where individual housesorhousing clusters are spread out along rural roads.
Low-density residential land usethreatens working farms and ranches by fragmenting the landscape and disrupting agricultural economies.In just fifteen years,nearly 7 million acresof farmland and ranchlandwere convertedtoLDRland use.
We all recognize urban sprawl, butlow-density residential land usehas flown below the radar, even though itisjustas much of a threat to farmland—now and in the future.Indeed, the report shows that LDR paves the way for further urbanization.Agricultural land in LDR areas was 23 times more likely to be converted to UHD than other agricultural land. In other words, once land has been converted to low-density residential land use, new development rapidly occurs on the remaining farmland and ranchland in the area.
LDRland usecompromises opportunities forfarming and ranching, making it difficult for farmers to get into their fields or travel between fields.New residents not used tolivingnext to agricultural operations often complain about farm equipment on roads orodorsrelated to farming. Retailers such as grain and equipment dealers, on which farmers rely, are often pushed out. Farmers can be tempted to sell out for financial reasons, or because farming just becomes too hard in the circ*mstances. And lastly–but importantly–as older farmers near retirement they sell their properties,too oftento non-farmers. This means that new and beginning farmershave a hard time finding land, threatening the very future of agriculture. More often than not, the land prices in these areas have been driven up by the encroaching development making it impossible for new farmers to afford to buy a farm.
What can states do to protect our nation’s irreplaceable farmland?
The report found that every state in the nation has taken some action to protect agricultural land, but all states must do more. Combined, states have permanentlyprotectedmore than 3 million acres,securedmore than 40million acres withrestrictive covenants and zoning, andreduced the tax burdenonmore than 475 million acreshelping them remainviable for agriculture.Thereportexaminessixapproachesthathelp protect land and maintain thriving agricultural communities– PACE programs, land use planning policies to manage development, agricultural districts programs that protect and encourage commercial agriculture, property tax relief for agricultural land, state leasing programs making state-owned land available to farmers and ranchers, andFarmLinkprograms that connect farmers with available land.
The report’sAgricultural Land Protection Scorecardshows where policy is having an impact and where more needs to be done,comparing threat to policy response.
Committed state action is an essential response to the loss of farmland and ranchland. While municipal and county governments are often in the best position to assess local conditions and address local needs, their resourcesoftenare limited, and the decisions in neighboring communities can have an impact on entire regions. State (and federal) goals and fundingare needed tostrengthen local efforts.
Pursuing multiple approaches and linking them together is the most effective path.The 12 most proactive states implemented a mix of approaches. Most significantly, they linked their programs to enhance effectiveness and created state guidelines to ensure local actions achieve broader goals.
The states with the most proactive policy responses to farmland protection are:
1) New Jersey2)Delaware3)Maryland4)Pennsylvania5)Vermont6)California7) Connecticut8)Rhode Island9)Oregon10)Washington11)Massachusetts12)Hawaii
What will AFT doto protect our agricultural resources?
AFTwill actto doublepermanentlyprotected farmlandby 2040 and reduce the rate of farmland conversion by halfby 2030 and by75%by 2040,making our best landapriority.
“AFT’s goal for saving farmland is ambitious, but it is necessary and doable. Thesoberingstatistics and pressing challenges uncovered in the “Farms Under Threat” research demand action,” said JohnPiotti, AFT president and CEO. “Meeting this goal will requirearejuvenatedfarmland protection movement emboldened withnewpurposeand urgency. Forourpart, AFT has outlined afive–point strategyto lead this national effortalongsideourmanypartners,including at the top of thatlistournation’sfarmers and ranchers.”
To save farmland at the scale needed will require a highly effective army of government entities, nongovernmental organizations, and committed farmers and ranchers. As we have for 40 years, AFT will actively support these players, providing information and assistance in numerous ways wherever we can. Specifically,we are taking the following steps:
- Establishing the National Agricultural Land Network, a nation-wide network of land trusts and government entities focused on protecting agricultural lands.
- Providingnewleadership inkeylocations, launching a program in the South and new emphasis in parts of the Midwest.
- Protectingmorefarmlandourselves and withpartners, reinvigorating our conservation easem*nt work.
- Advocating for strongerstate andfederal policies, helping any states interested in improvingtheir land protection effortsand continuing our work withU.S. Climate Alliancestates.
- Promotingresearch–baseddecisionmaking, widely disseminating the findings from “Farms Under Threat: The State of the States” report.
AFTwill work tirelessly tosave the land that sustains us.
Compromising Nationally Significant land imperils U.S. farm viability, the environment and our ability to fight climate change.
The 4.4 million acres of Nationally Significant land that wereconverted tonon-agricultural usebetween 2001 and 2016weresome of themostvaluable land in this country. Itcan take two to three times the amount of marginal land to make up for its loss.Every state converted high–quality agricultural land– both land significant to the nation as a whole and land significant for local and regional food systems.
When Nationally Significant land is impacted by development, intensive food production is pushed to more marginal lands where input costs are higher, crop yields are lower, and soils degrade more quickly. Farmers are challenged to make an adequate income andriskgoingout of business.
When farmershave no choice but tofarm marginal land, the additional fertilizers, herbicides, and insecticides they use runoff into waterways and increase air pollution.
In fact, when farmland is managed well, it produces far less pollution than land converted to housing or commercial use. According to the study“Greener Fields”produced by AFT and UC Davis, farmland that is converted to other uses emits greenhouse gases at a level 58-70 times greater than if it had remained in farming. To put that in perspective: a 75% reduction of farmland loss in California would be equivalent to taking 1.9 million cars off the road.
Well-managed farms and ranches can help cool the globe. But it’s our best land that does this most effectively. The capability of marginal land to sequester carbon is significantly lower than land with better soils. Soils thatarepaved over,of course,sequesternone at all.
Right now, if all of the Earth’s farmers and ranchers implemented regenerative practices on their land—such as reducing tillage, growing cover crops, planting perennials, and enhancing grazing management—the impacts of GHG emissions from fossil fuels could be cut by 10 to 20% annually. But when farmland converts to other uses, we lose land that could have sequestered carbon. What’s more, additional pressure is put on the remaining acres to be farmed more intensively, limiting our opportunity to farm in ways that benefit the environment. It’s a vicious cycle. Taking it a step further,the benefits of regenerative agriculture are temporary unless the farmland on which the practices are undertaken continues to be stewarded wisely. If the farmland is ultimately lost to development, much of the carbon that had been stored in the soil will be re-released to the atmosphere.
We only haveadecadeto stop the worst impactsof the climate crisis—we need to preserve every acre of our best soils.
We know that in addition to development pressure, farmland is under pressure from the impacts of climate change. In the next phase of‘Farms Under Threat’research, AFT will be looking at climate impacts on the land,projecting out to 2040.
As the worsening impacts of climate change continue to raise ocean levels, saltwater intrusion will take away coastal farmland and populations will be driven inland,pressuring more farmland. Changing weather will render some farmland too wet to farm, while other land will be too dry to be productive.
Being prepared means protecting farmland now. What seems abundant in the present may not be adequate in the future.
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American Farmland Trust is the only national organization that takes a holistic approach to agriculture, focusing on the land itself, the agricultural practices used on that land, and the farmers and ranchers who do the work. AFT launched the conservation agriculture movement and continues to raise public awareness through ourNo Farms, No Foodmessage. Since our founding in 1980, AFT has helped permanently protect over 6.5 million acres of agricultural lands, advanced environmentally-sound farming practices on millions of additional acres and supported thousands of farm families.
